12 May 2008: The inaugural meeting of the UN High-level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis, convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, focused on elaborating a comprehensive framework for tackling the challenges posed by the food price crisis. In his opening remarks at the 12 May 2008 meeting, Secretary-General Ban recognized that soaring food prices are “essentially linked to the global demand for food exceeding supply, the drivers of the crisis are complex and the consequences are varied. Tackling this issue will require international leadership and coordination at the highest level.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s statement | UN Press release | Task Force website
2 May 2008: The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a statement on biofuels, in which it raises questions regarding a surge in food prices and biofuels and notes a number of important factors impacting food supplies and prices, including surging food demand, failed harvests and high energy prices. 
2 May 2008: One day after taking office, newly appointed Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, called for a special session of the Human Rights Council, so that the Council can “speak with one single voice.” He called upon States to increase their support to humanitarian agencies and provide cash transfers to the neediest segments of populations in food-insecure countries. In the longer-term, he called for greater financial support for small-scale farmers, action to combat climate change, and the phasing out of “market-distorting” agricultural subsidies, noting that the current crisis is “not a natural disaster” but “a crisis which is man-made.” 
29 April 2008: “Soaring food prices in recent months are dramatically worsening the living conditions of the ‘bottom billion’ of poor people who live on a dollar a day or less,” said Jaques Diouf, FAO Director General, in a statement announcing preparations for the FAO’s “High-level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy,” to be held 3-5 June 2008 at FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy. High food prices could compromise efforts to achieve the first of the Millennium Development Goals, to reduce by half extreme poverty and hunger in the world by 2015. The challenge is to “boost agriculture in developing countries in a sustainable way,” Diouf said, calling on heads of state and government to seize the opportunity of the FAO summit to address the current grave situation and to “re-launch agriculture now.” 
21 April 2008: A new FAO study warns that the rapid expansion of large-scale production of liquid biofuels in developing countries could exacerbate the marginalization of women in rural areas and threaten their livelihoods. The study, entitled Gender and Equity Issues in Liquid Biofuels Production – Minimizing the Risks to Maximize the Opportunities, discusses the potential gender-differentiated risks of liquid biofuels production and identifies research and policy strategies to better understand and address them. Large scale biofuel production requires intensive use of resources and inputs, such as land, water, fertilizers and pesticides, to which small farmers, particularly women, traditionally have limited access. 
Robert B. Zoellick, World Bank President, called, on 2 April 2008, for a “New Deal for a Global Food Policy” to combat world hunger and malnutrition, in the face of skyrocketing food and oil prices, through a combination of emergency aid and long-term efforts to boost agricultural productivity in developing countries. Zoellick said the new deal is needed to combat the “forgotten” Millennium Development Goal of overcoming malnutrition, a problem that causes 3.5 million deaths a year in children under 5 and has long-lasting impacts on health and achievement. According to Zoellick, this new deal “should focus not only on hunger and nutrition, access to food and its supply, but also the interconnections with energy, yields, climate change, investment, the marginalization of women and others, and economic resiliency and growth.” 
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Vice-President Kanayo Nwanze told participants at the first annual meeting of the African Union/United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Conference of Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, that “A concerted, coordinated and collective effort is the most effective way to tackle the triple scourge of poverty, climate change and high food prices and to guarantee a sustainable future for women, marginalized groups and smallholder farmers in Africa.” 
In his statement to mark 2008 World Meteorological Day, UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Executive Secretary Luc Gnacadja emphasized the increasing frequency of extreme weather and climate events, including droughts and water scarcity, and highlighted that “Desertification, land degradation and drought are strongly linked to climate change, soil degradation and biodiversity.” 
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called upon countries to participate in preparing the next Global Forest Resources Assessment, the most comprehensive data collection on the state of the world’s forests to date. 
